TorilMUD is now accepting voluntary donations to go towards paying the cost of running and hosting the MUD and its website.

As per the Diku MUD license, Toril may not be run for profit, and we have no intention of doing so. However, due to the relatively high cost of running and hosting a bandwidth-intensive site such as this MUD, we will now allow players the option of donating money to us to be used for maintaing the MUD. All donations will go only towards paying for a site and bandwidth, or machine upgrades and repairs.

All donations will be completely anonymous, and there will be no rewards in-game or without for donating. No preferential treatment will be given to anyone who donates. This means that infractions of the in-game rules by people who have donated money will be treated exactly the same as anyone else. All funds received will be used only to maintain, repair, and upgrade TorilMUD. I will repeat all of this in bulletin points just to be perfectly clear:
* All donations are completely anonymous.

* There will be NO refunds.

* There will be NO rewards for donations.

* There will be NO preferential treatment given to those who donate.

* All donations will be used ONLY to maintain, repair, and upgrade TorilMUD, its website, and its connection.

* Donations are completely voluntary. TorilMUD is and will always be 100% free to play.

So now that that's all out of the way, if you wish to donate to TorilMUD we are currently accepting donations via PayPal only. If you wish to donate via other means you may contact me at shevarash_toril@yahoo.com.

You may want to use the "Create Donation Button" option in your paypal account instead of just a payment link. The payment link is designated more for purchasing an item. The donation link is just what it says.

Ghimok|Dlur|Emeslan|Ili|Zinse|Teniv

*~~~~~~~~~~*

"Censorship is telling a man he can't eat a steak just because a baby can't chew it." - Mark Twain

We do pllan on using the donation button when the website is working again. Within the forums though, the direct link seems to be the best choice - and its generated by the same thing as the donation button.

Hate to be a fly in the ointment, and I'll gladly be sending in my donation, but will there be an accounting available for public view? Funds taken in, funds paid out for which expenses, stuff like that. I know it needs to be kept anonymous, but I would personally love to see a listing of transaction numbers each of us who donate could access to ensure the accuracy of our investment into the game.

I hesitated to post this, because I have complete faith in the accountability of the forgers here, but it seems only appropriate to make the information public for donors.

Can you put the monthly expense cost up? Some of us would like to donate as we go kindof like a subscription plan, and put in at least our %. I'd hate to be donating 5 a month if what I see as my share is actually more like 10 a month. Make sense?

Nothing like a breakdown of what everything costs, just a number :)

As a note, not to bag on your idea Ashiwi but the nature of donating is to give them the money with the freedom to do as they wish. I'm not saying they'd have any reason to be secretive, but considering we have a coder/quest/admin sphere already that have tons of projects going, I'm not sure an accounting sphere is something I'd want time spent on. If I had to choose between melee upgrades and cost number crunching, i'd pick the former :)

It wouldn't be hard to maintain, and it would be folly not to do so anyway, regardless if the results were being posted here or not.

As I said to Shar/Shev last night they need to move away from one time donations and move to monthly donations.

Paypay does have that option, they need to find out how to make a button/link for it.

And they may want to see about an alternative. Maybe it's possible to accept credit card payments? Tons of porn sites do, among other things.

Maybe they could set it up to take a few 'standard' donations, say 2.50, 5 and 10 dollars a month?

That might sound like small amounts, and while it is a small amount, it's much more likely to keep the mud running.

If everything works off of one time donations then people will donate in the first month, but it'll tail off after that, and people will start to think 'I've already donated'

There's what, 200 regular players here? If 1/4 of those donate something monthly, most giving 5 dollars, some giving 2.5 and some giving 10, giving an average say of 3.5 dollars, then that would give over 100 per month, which, and I'm in no position to say.... might be the kind of figure being looked for?

Of course, if box upgrades are needed then starting off this way is probably a good thing.

The problem with monly donations from paypal accounts is that people have to transfer money into their paypal account each month, or keep a balance.

I took a quick look at iBill, and it seemed they charged 15%. Which probably isn't too bad in comparison to PayPal costs, and if it makes it possible for people to donate then great. I know I'd much rather pay direct from my credit card than mess about with paypal.

Even with a 15% charge, the guesstimation of the amounts still is over 100 per month.

Food for thought at least, and if you see this as negative I'm sorry, but the survival of the mud depends on a fast stable connection, and donations are the way to get that, but only if it's done right.

Stamm wrote:the survival of the mud depends on a fast stable connection, and donations are the way to get that, but only if it's done right.

Exactly. Except I would change the the phrase "donations are the way" to "donations are one way".

Personally I like the idea of some anonymous donation option for TorilMUD players in general; and if some players wish to make a regular donation that's fine, and if others prefer to just make a once-off or perhaps intermittent few donations, that's fine too.
I'll probably toss some in now, but ongoing furture donations will be heavily dependent on MUD link, speed and uptime reliablility.

Ashiwi wrote:Hate to be a fly in the ointment, and I'll gladly be sending in my donation, but will there be an accounting available for public view? Funds taken in, funds paid out for which expenses, stuff like that. I know it needs to be kept anonymous, but I would personally love to see a listing of transaction numbers each of us who donate could access to ensure the accuracy of our investment into the game.

I hesitated to post this, because I have complete faith in the accountability of the forgers here, but it seems only appropriate to make the information public for donors.

I can honestly say that paypal does take credit cards, but it can be quite a hassle. I've bought and sold on ebay and paypal takes a chunk out of credit card transactions.. I'm not sure of the figures atm.. as far as percent goes.. but i know that when i sell somethin on ebay and the person pay by credit card with paypal I'm charged a fee for the credit card transaction on top of the normal paypal fee. I dont know if it's different with it being donations or not.. one thing people may think about is getting their paypal to take out of their checking account, lower fees on the other end and completely secure.
Just my 2cents :)

I'm sure many of us would happily help out. Fundraising is more succesful if you present specifics about what you are raising the money for. For example, if you said you were raising money to upgrade the link specficially, i'm sure that would be popular :)

I suggest:
1) Share some data about what it would take to get from where we are now to where you want us to be, linkwise.
2) Develop a system to recognize your supporters somehow outside of the game.

The link should be a priority imo and it's something everyone will notice.

Truthfully, the most successful way to get donations imo would be to post a breakdown of your budget, and all of the expenses you are soliciting funds for. Also the $ amount that is in the pot currently.

1) We plan on being hosted by a new provider very soon. We don't know exactly how much the monthly cost will be yet and won't until we get the first bill, but we estimate it will be roughly $100/month. We do not currently require any new hardware, but its inevitable that we will in the future, and impossible to predict what it will be and how much it will cost.

2) We are not asking the players to support TorilMUD. The MUD will continue whether or not we receive a single penny in donations. However, several players expressed a desire to donate, thus this option now exists. The fact is, there ARE costs associated with running the MUD, and while assistance offsetting those costs isn't required by the playerbase, it is helpful. It will help us avoid unexpected downtimes, the pain that comes along with sitting on somebody's DSL line while saving money for a site, etc. Money in the bank for the MUD means extra stability and insurance against future unpredictable events. If you'd like to contribute to that, this is how.

3) I will be happy to post more specifics on our operating costs and expenditures when they're known. Until then, I will say that every penny that is donated will go only towards improving and stabilizing the MUD.

Once again, in case anyone missed it - you are not being asked to support the MUD. You are however, given the opportunity to help out should you feel the desire to.

I hope that clears up some of the questions regarding this, if not...ask again and I'll try my best to answer them.

Sarvis wrote:But it would also be illegal under the license agreement for diku MUD.

No it's not Sarvis. I'm not sure what Shev/Cyric/Shar has done, but the Dark & Shattered Lands mud has communicated with the Diku founders and the founders acknowledged that donations is 100% within the license.

Summary: This is analogous as those shareware/public domain companies that charge for the media, not the software. [They even charge for their own overhead and salaries as part of the media production process]

You should know that I do have some disagreements with a couple of the Diku team members. One of them expressed his discontent that I rewarded players for donating. However, we all agreed that when I reward players for donating, it does not violate the Diku license since that is in no way making a "profit". Please click here to read the diku license for yourself.

Please realize that our difference in opinion does not in any way reflect our rights to running this software and until the Diku team decides to start paying our expenses, I'll stick to the license strictly and make personal decisions on any unwritten rule they wish for me to abide by. In plain and simple English, it is not right for them to come to me and ask me to abide by their wishes when it is not part of the license. Especially since we started with a source code that had only incorporated the basic functions of theirs and has since grown to over 100 times the size they contributed. We have argued over the issue and some of the Diku founders are behind my decision 100% while others are not. But we've done our arguing and have agreed to disagree. However both sides agree that we are in fact abiding by their written license 100%.

The key part is not making a profit. I'd imagine that so long as good books were kept to show that any and all donations were kept riding as a bank account balance and never withdrawn to pay for anything other than mud related expenses it would be acceptable. I'd suggest making such books public and also communicate to the Diku team (note: I don't know what Shev/Cyric/Shar have or have not done, they're intelligent people, and just might already have email backup from the Diku team) in order to forestall and address complaints/questions/lawsuits.

[tangent]
I could also see how the mud could compensate those that run the mud. The key is that the MUD cannot make a profit. It would seem quite within the letter of the license to incorporate the MUD and have Shev/Cyric/Shar work for the mud, rather than having the mud be Shev/Cyric/Shar's personal property.

I'm not sure this would ever happen. To survive a lawsuit, the corporate structure would likely have to include proceedures for replacing Shev/Cyric/Shar. Otherwise, a lawyer might be able to pierce the corporate veil and show that the mud is nothing more than Shev/Cyric/Shar and that thus any compensation paid to them constitutes "profit".

While I don't mind our current overlords (and lady), I'd bet that they would rather continue to donate their time rather than introduce the possibility of being replaced. Hence, I doubt that they will ever take a cent of the money donated as that seems to open another legal can of worms to which I have no example mud to which I can point.

I am not a lawyer, this tangent has been Sservis's speculation. Relying on it as legal advice would misconstrue it's purpose. Any action taken based on anything said here is done solely at one's own risk. yada yada yada[/tangent]

Question for Shev/Cyric/Shar: What are the communication plans for the muds use of donations?

Ending thought: The best thing about accepting donations is that it induces a direct motive for the imms to include the players as part of the mud's "direction" (moreso than the nebulous "pbase maximization" motive).

My bad, it's been a while since I paid attention to any of that crap. I thought it was ok to accept donations, and sell mud related merchandise but NOT to give in-game rewards under the diku license. Guess I was wrong...

However, I would suggest that it is unfair to reward players for donations in game. Especially those of us who are currently unemployed... :(

Whether it's legal or not, it's still not 'all right' to reward players in-game for donations.

As for Sservis's interesting tangent....

Well, I'm sure it's legal for the mud to pay Xyzzy Hosting Incorporated to host the mud. It'd be legal then for them to pay Grue Web Design Limited to make the website. It'd be legal for them to pay Diamond Security Corporation to monitor connections for multiplayers, hack attempts etc. So it'd be legal to employ Shevarash Mudcoding PLC to recode the melee system...

Sservis wrote:Question for Shev/Cyric/Shar: What are the communication plans for the muds use of donations?

We will be (and have been) gathering information regarding the cost of hosting, advertising, and general box maintenance (etc.) over the next little bit. Once an average of several options is combined, we will post the numbers. We may then continue to post the numbers if we require more donations to fund a service.

Just to clarify, incase it was ever unclear :

* We will not be posting amounts of donations recieved.

* We will not be posting the names of donators.

* We will not be posting specific names of businesses/clients used for goods or services that use donated money.

Donations will *always* remain private. Should the need arise to gather more funds for required services, we may at that time post the total amount of money needed, should we have insufficient funds to fill the bill.

There are several long term or (semi)permanant things that require funding. Obviously, the most important is hosting. Without a host the mud cannot run, so logically the hosting cost get paid for first. Another very important facet of sucsessful gaming is advertising. Something that we have learned very recently is that advertising effectively is *HUGELY* expensive. We can pay very little for non-quality advertising and get very little result. We can pay a hefty price for very effective advertising with very good result, or we could go middle of the road and pay for middle of the road results. Usually the cost associated with advertising correlates directly with the result you get. In any of the three options, we need the money before we can have the desired result that advertising would bring.

We always knew advertising would be the most expensive part of running a game but up until recently we had little idea of just how much it costs. We all know that we have the best mud out there yet we have no way of letting the world know about us. The players are the BEST way we have to advertise, and at the moment, the *only* way we have to advertise. If you love this game, tell a friend! :)

Hosting, box/equipment maintenance and advertising are the long term costs of running a mud. Contributing to this mud can be done without giving us your money. Each of you can contribute by being a productive player. Your characters online are part of the atmosphere. Without you, we would have no mud.

If you feel you have the means to donate to our mudding community and want to help, we welcome your donation. If you do not have the means to donate but still wish to help create the positive atmosphere, do helpful things online and... tell a friend or 40! Remember, we do not want to send anyone into the poor house by accepting donations. We understand financial difficulty.

Rest assured that we will continue to run the mud with or without your donations, but donations *will* help us both in stability and in pbase numbers.

If you have more questions, post them specifically plz :) thanks for your patience!